aussie417

I was in Ireland, I assume that counts. We had just gotten off the bus in Killarney, I had been there previously and I needed to use the public restroom. As I was making my way towards the "tourist" area, one of the women on my tour bus approached me and uttered, "they just bombed the World Trade Center". I will never forget those first thoughts in my head, "Yeah, right!!!" As I got close to the village, I could see that what she had said was true. It was about 9:30 EST. I was alone in Ireland and my son and his girlfriend were living in NYC. There was such an incredible feeling of helplessness. I went into one of the pubs and just sat watching the TV. Our bus was only there for about 90 minutes in which time I did not move from in front of the TV. The trip home was not scheduled to leave until Saturday. Honestly, I don't really remember anything else that happened on that trip. I just wanted to be home so bad. I was relieved when my brother called me in Ireland and "three wayed" my son on the line. One of my son's friends was not so lucky. Believe me, I saw the towers going down this morning on TV and I weep everytime I even think about it, no less view it. Until the day I die, I will never get over it.

eurogals

My husband and I were in Paris and had just returned from a lovely day in the Marais neighborhood. We just returned to our hotel and turning on the TV we saw a burning building and before we could even figure out it was the World Trade Center the second plane came along and hit the tower.

It was terribly upsetting to say the least. My grown children were very scared at home not knowing what might happen next and tried to call and couldn't get through to us.

We cancelled our dinner plans and just moped around. The french were very sympathetic and offer us condolences where ever we went.

Our flight home was in four days, but that was postponed out of Amsterdam for an additional four days.

Not a good way to end a trip.

traveller1959

I am German and I was in Germany. I came from a business meeting and boarded a train. In the first-class compartment, one fellow businessman told us about the incident.
I vividly recall that I couldn't believe it. I talked to myself "This is just a bad dream and you will wake up soon and find that nothing had happened."
I think I will feel the same if someone called me and told me that my wife or child had an accident.
Later, I called home. My family was watching TV all day. Everyone was sad and upset.
That it happened in New York and DC made no difference to us. It was the same as if it had happened in Frankfurt or Paris or London. I thought, the world is no longer safe from now.

wanderlust5

We were in Athens, and had intended to come home, through NY, to Seattle, on the 11th. I had told my entire family and friends that we were coming home on the 11th, via Athens-Amsterdam-JFK-Seattle. I decided, at the last minute, for some unknown reason, to fly home on the 10th, and what was supposed to be a 3 hour layover at Schipol turned into a 9 hour delay. They kept telling us different things...the plane had to be switched because of a mechanical...the second plane was running late...We noticed that there was a briefcase at the security podiums at our gate that was attached to no one and the Dutch police had encircled it and talked incessantly about who it belonged to and what to do with it. After 9 hours, they finally put us on the plane, and we flew home, and when we arrived in Seattle we were zombies we were so exhausted having gotten up at 2:00 a.m. the day before in Athens to go home.

We were asleep, and my phone began ringing just after 5:00 a.m. with frantic vmails from my family, who thought we were in the air when all that happened. The vmail said, "When you get home call us immediately" and we flew out of bed and ran in and turned on CNN. We sat in shock all day long and watched the news...and I was taking calls and assuring everyone that we had decided to come home the day before.

I don't know why I changed our plans, and I'll never understand all the ins and outs of fate and destiny. I have flown at least 100 times since 9/11, but I never fail to have it cross my mind every time I get on a plane. Not fear or panic. Just extreme sadness and heartbreak that our world has come to this, and that human beings can do such dreadful, hateful things to one another. Like all of us on this board, who love travel and meeting other people and seeing the world and learning and appreciating other cultures, I would like to live in a world with no borders and no hate, but I don't see it happening in my lifetime. If ever. It will always break my heart that we can't all just live in peace. So I keep traveling and spreading my version of love and humanity across the globe in the hopes that people will see that there are americans who love the world and who are tolerant and that respect other religions and other human beings.

altamiro

>All I was saying is that if an American cheered at the misfortune of another nation, he or she would be branded a barbarian. But when the shoes on the other foot, things seem to be different.

To whom?

If somebody cheered the murder of 3000 innocent people they are barbarians. What I don't believe is that there was anything more than some isolated nutcases. And some people are ready and willing to believe the wildest rumours if only they match their prejudices.

altamiro

>It was all over Fox and the Free Republic from the minute it happened up to Mar 2003.

On the news? Or in the forums? This is a big difference. I don't know much about Fox but I had several looks into the FR forums and always recoiled in disgust from the hate pouring out from a majority of participants. The articles on the FR front pages are in my opinion often overblown, tendentious or factually incorrect, but i can live with it. But the response in the forum is just disgusting. Did they collect every nutcase with a grudge there?

jpower

Four of us had landed in London from Paris and the first thing we learned upon arriving at the hotel was "some plane crash in New York" We immediately checked in and went to our room to watch TV - we soon went down to the bar and behind the bar was a huge color picture of the Twin Towers, a decorating piece that obviously had been there for years.
We were scheduled to return to US on Fri but of course all flights cancelled; had to leave out Hotel Friday and could not find accomadations anywhere. Our traveling companions had old friends north of London and they opened their home to us for 5 days until we could get a plane home. Their hospitality will always be remembered as a blessing amidst such tragedy. We also were at Buckingham Palace when, for the first time, they played another anthem (Star Spangled Banner) at the changing of the guard. Despite rumors of more attacks there were thousands of people gathered at a likely potential bomb site. All air traffic was suspended but one solitary 747 continuously circled London for days and later learned that it was searching the skies with radar for any air space violators.
Because of a computer error, we had two extra tickets to tour Buckingham Palace and I offered them to the American that was standing beside us in the crowd. He later revealed that he was a NY fireman on vacation and his firehouse would have been the first station to respond and he had no idea how many friends were lost.
While the mood of the English was somber, more than once I heard, "Now you Yanks know what its like to be bombed"
There were Islamic celebrations and rallies throughout London at many of the mosques.
It was a long flight home

altamiro

I was preparing for my final exams at the uni. Suddenly a flatmate knocked and said "Is your TV on?" Of course it wasn't. I asked why. She just told me "turn it on and see" and was gone. I turned it on and thought for a time it was a sci-fi movie, a bad one, or computer simulation, or whatever. Only when the second plane crashed into the towers I understood it was real. I was just frozen. No sudden "insights", no such things - just a shock. Like "it can't be. It just can't happen!" But it was. They even showed the falling people.

kerouac

I was a partner in a small typical Paris café at the time, and one thing that struck everybody was a group of 4 Americans staying at a nearby Citadines apartment. They were stranded for about a week before they could leave, but they came in every morning for breakfast and pored over the IHT for at least an hour and talked and speculated. They were very appreciative of the compassion that everyone showed them, philosophical about the delay, and not in any hurry to get on an airplane, even if they were longing to go home.

toulousaine

My husband, daughter and I were in the Paris airport on the afternoon of 9/10, waiting to head home to the USA after living in France for 5 months. The security at CDG was incredible. We had to show our passports at these makeshift checkpoints. Strange, we thought, because security coming into CDG 5 months earlier was nonexistent.
As we were boarding, they were checking passports with magnifying lenses, and making all Arab descent passengers step to the side. We naturally thought they were looking for someone in particular. I was really worried about that person being on our plane, but then they eventually let everyone on.
After many hours of travel, two layovers in Canada and severe scrutiny at Customs, we got home. We had exactly 3 hours to sleep before a family member pounded on our door to "get up! Someone is flying planes in the WTC!" I thought it was a terrible dream initiated by the previous hours of flying halfway across the world.
It took me almost 4 years to get back on an international flight again (last year).

AnthonyGA

So you encountered an unusual, heavy security presence the day <i>before</i> 9/11? Hmm.

I was in Europe on 9/11, and I was thankful to be able to escape the huge wave of hysteria that would follow the attack, along with the unwarranted loss of personal liberties it would ultimately entail (Europe was not completely spared of this mindset, but the USA went much further).

I recall going for a walk in the afternoon and seeing people standing outside electronics stores, looking at video of the attacks in the televisions on display.

For some time after, people I encountered here would express their condolences and ask if I knew anyone who had been killed (even though that was wildly improbable). So much for French &ldquo;hostility&rdquo; towards Americans, eh?

The greatest surprise was to see all the government buildings lower their flags to half mast &hellip; something the French ordinarily don't do for <i>anyone</i> abroad.

3mkids

My husband and I were in Orvieto. We rarely travel without our kids, but that trip we did. We were traveling for three weeks in Italy, and on 9/11 we still had more than a week to go. At the time the WTC was coming down, our kids were in school in the U.S.

I will never forget that experience because it was surreal. We happened to be passing a little electronics store with TVs in the window. My husband, who at the time spoke a little Italian (he has since taught himself to be fairly fluent) told me to stop, as he was reading the words on the TV screens through the store windown. At first we didn't know what was happening. Then the reality was overwhelming as we watched these buildings fall. The reality was shocking to us, and more and more people started to gather in front of this little store window. One woman began to cry since her relative worked in the WTC.

We were frantically trying to reach our parents in the US, our nanny at the time who was taking care of our kids while we were away, and their school- all to no avail. Finally, we left that storefront window, and just sat at some outdoor cafe, as we contemplated what we had just seen, and the fact that our entire family was in the US. We are from NY, and although we lived in Atlanta, as did my parents and my brother and his family, my husband's brother and cousins lived in NJ (one cousin lived in the Village) and worked in NYC. His mom was in FLa.

The rest of that day was like an outer body experience. We were walking around, but totally disconnected to what we were doing. We just decided to go back to our hotel, which was this small charming hotel, where we were glued to the TV for hours.

We were frantic about the well-being of our family members during our drive back to our hotel. We had no idea what was going on in the rest of the country, and simply could not get through on our cell phones - no surprise. We bless our nanny (she is no longer with us, as our kids are a little older) for calling our hotel in Orvieto and leaving the simple message, &quot;we are OK&quot;.

I tried, unsuccessfully to get through to my parents many times that night. We were the only Americans at this particular hotel, and the concierge could see our stress level. During dinner, which we took at the hotel that night, my dad finally had gotten through. We spoke for a few minutes, quickly finished dinner, and then went back to our room, in the hopes of finally be able to get through on our own cell phones.

My parents were very worried and my mom tried to convince us to change our travel plans and come home immediately. She obviously wasn't thinking clearly, as that would have been impossible. My now 15 year old, was 11 at the time, and was very worried. We wanted to be home by a particular time to celebrate holidays with our family. He repeated to me many times on the phone that night, that we shouldn't fly home, it was OK if we missed the holidays. My heart broke hearing him on the phone and his fear for our safety.

Our itinerary called for us to drive to Rome on 9/12. After an agonizing night, we decided to stick to that plan, and make inquiry about flying home from Rome that day. Of course that was impossible.

9/12 in Rome was an amazing experience. We decided that we had to do something to distract ourselves from what was happening in the US. Around mid-afternoon we decided to go to the Colosseum, which we did. As we were leaving around closing time, a street vendor told us that there was going to be a march later that evening, by the Colosseum. We crossed the Via del Corso and decided to stay around there instead of going back to our hotel on the Via Veneto. We grabbed a quick dinner, and soon the Via del Corso started to fill up with people carrying candles. My husband and I joined the march, some people gave us candles, and we, along with thousands of people, walked silently to the Colosseum. We did not see or hear any other Americans around us, in the march. Representatives from numerous cities in Italy spoke. My husband, an avid photographer, took many many pictures of this event.

We stayed in Rome a few days, and decided that we had better stick to our itinerary, as we would be unable to change any of our flight plans. We were right, as it would have been impossible to do so. Our itinerary called for us to go to London for a few days before coming home. Leaving from Rome airport was a zoo, as many people were stranded without flights, and without any place to go. We recall some elderly women who had lost their flight, and who had run out of money, so they were taking turns keeping watch at the airport for any flight that might open up, and sleeing on the 1 bed and the floor in the single hotel room they could still afford.

My husband and I spent a few days in London, keeping our flights to London and home to the US as they had originally been scheduled, lest we be unable to secure other flights. Although we enjoyed the balance of Rome and London, it took a concerted effort to compartmentalize our concern for our family and what was happening in the US, with the reality that we were basically stuck until we could get on our scheduled flight back to the US. The airport shutdowns just after 9/11 had caused a serious ripple effect with flight cancellations, etc.

I will never forget flying over NYC on our way home to Atlanta. We could still see the smoke rising up from where the WTC once stood. This was very traumatic for me and my husband since we had met at the WTC. We are both attorneys, and in 1979 met when I was doing a high school internship working at the New York State Division of Human Rights which was located in the WTC. We worked together in the legal unit, which as I recall,was on the 52 floor. In addition to our vivid memories of and connection to the WTC, in 2000 we had taken our kids to NYC, and have pictures from the observation deck of the WTC.

Like many people we know people who died in the WTC, and know people who have relatives and friends who perished that day. One of the sorriest stories that touched us personally was to learn of the deaths of NYC rescue personnel who had died trying to save people. We had just taken their depositions in a case we had involving NYC several months before.

Areala

I was not in europe on 9/11 but was due to fly out on 9/12 for our 3 week trip to France. Due to 9/11 our plane and all others were grounded and we didn't get to leave until 9/18.

I scrambled to change hotel and car reservations. Everyone was so kind and helpful and made it very easy to change everything by one week.

Upon arrival in Paris right from the start I felt nothing but warmth and compassion from all we met. I could not believe how kind everyone was and still are and so eager to please and be helpful.

But what I remember most while visiting churches and cathedrals several had books visitors could post in and while I only read english unfortuneately, I was reading thru some of the comments before mine and the english written ones I could read and while I could not read the others I could discern the words America and USA and a few others and these words of hope and sadness and sorrow touched me so much that I would stand there reading and crying and feeling the love that these other people from other countries and cultures were pouring their hearts out to us. I will forever remember this in my heart and soul.

Thank you France and all of europe.

Belledame

I was in NY where I live. Came up from the subway, saw smoke in the sky, saw flames blazing out of the windows, walked into the guy next to me and said &quot;Is that a FIRE?!&quot; He said, &quot;That's the World Trade Center.&quot; Man behind me said, &quot;What happened?&quot; I thought, I just got off the same train you did. Everyone crossed the street on the green light. Got to my building on Fifth Avenue. The towers framed it on the horizon. Just look straight down. Street was full of people just watching.

From there, the day got exponentially unbelievable.

hopingtotravel

It sounds as though several of you were in Ireland. Because of the Irish police and firefighters involved, I think 9/11 hit the Irish people very hard.

We were driving from Donegal to Dublin in expectation of flying home on 9/12. Our video tape shows the date in the corner of a scene where my husband is standing on a picnic table near a lake. The highway goes through Northern Ireland briefly. He is saying, &quot;here we are in Northern Ireland. It's beautiful and we're probably safer than if we were in NY or Miami'.

We got to our hotel around 2pm Ireland time. The TV was on in our room. I wondered why they thought we wanted to see a science fiction movie--it was the news shots of the second airplane flying into the building, and the notice that 2 other planes were missing.

As an above poster said, the whole country closed for a day of mourning. The Irish treated us wonderfully. People would stop on the street to express their sympathies if they heard our American accent. Our hotel fed us dinner and a shuttered back room on Friday because even the grocery stores were closed.

We gained a lot of admiration for Tony Blair as we watched Sky news. Because we had three segments to fly, part of which were on a mileage ticket, we didn't get home for a week.

kaneda

I was in a little town in Italy whose name I have forgotten. I had been looking around the town and came back to my hotel and turned the news on catching the story almost from the start. I spent the rest of the afternoon/evening in my room watching the story unfold.

Though I don't have a lot to say for Bush, I thought he did well in a slow and measured reply instead of rushing in with threats of nuclear bombs as some thought he might.

Mimar

We were in Italy. Our first inkling was a newspaper hoarding in Bevagna. But we took that to be an ad for an old movie. e only found out the truth when we got back to the hotel. From then on we were glued to CNN. Alternating with Internet cafes, communicating with home. We found Internet outlets in private homes, in a flower shop... Then, in Orvieto, we were touring the cathedral when they announced two minutes of silence in remembrance of the vicims.

Experiencing this in Europe was different than being in the US. With so much sympathy from all the Europeans, we didn't feel the fierce patriotism that seemed to reign at home.

BRITAZ

As a Flight Attendant for a major airline I was flying a route to Europe. First thoughts were disbelief and confusion. Next thoughts for me were of the Cabin Crew. The sheer horror of what had happened didn't hit me until we landed at our London base and saw it on TV amongst our fellow comrades. I loved to fly every day but it will never feel the same again.

Rachele

I was in London on 9/11/01. I live in the East Village in NYC and my sister lives (and lived at the time) in London. I was getting married on 11/11/01 and my sister and I had gone to Paris for the weekend and were shopping for a dress for her to wear in my wedding. On 9/11, my sister had to go to work, so I decided to go to some traditional London sites that I hadn't been to in many years. First I went to Westminster Abbey, then walked through Westminster by the Cenotaph and 10 Downing Street to Trafalgar Square. I ended up having lunch in a pub with no TV, and way by myself with no cell phone, so I had no idea what was going on in NYC.

I like to play blackjack and was a member of the Golden Nugget in the West End, so I took a long walk and then went over there to play for a while, then I was going to meet my sister to see Mama Mia. I won a big hand and said &quot;Oh yeah!&quot; when the dealer asked me if I was American. When I said yes, he asked me if I knew about the terrorist attack [it was 4:30 in London by then] and I said what are you talking about? I spoke to my fiance late last night and he works on Wall Street. The whole area I was in went silent, and the dealer said there was a TV in the lounge and I should go take a look at it. I went over and there was a group of women watching. I saw the image of the burning towers for the first time and asked them what happened. One woman said &quot;They're gone&quot; and I said &quot;What are you talking about, they're right there!&quot; and they shook their heads. I sat down for a minute and tried to make sense of things and then cashed in and ran out in to find the first pay phone I could. I got my sister who was crying and had been waiting for hours for me to call. She gave me more details on what was happening. My fiance had not called yet, so I just yelled &quot;Find Bill!&quot; and ran to the closest Tube stop.

Fortunately, by the time I took the surreal tube ride and made it to my sister's flat, my fiance had managed to get a call through that he was OK after running up Broadway. Like most other posters on this site, particularly those from NYC, I was pretty much a zombie until I got a flight out on Sept. 16th. I was glued to the TV, or trying to call NYC to see if people were OK (my close friends and family were fine, but I knew people who were killed). I went to the memorial service at St. Paul's (outside) and that was pretty moving.

Most people who I encountered in London were wonderful. As soon as they heard the American accent they offered their sympathies, and people who knew I lived in NYC were so nice. I was pretty lucky since I was with my sister and had a place to stay and was with family. All I wanted to do was go home though. I felt so bad that my fiance was in our apartment alone in NYC in the sealed off zone (we live below 14th Street). I finally got home on Sept. 16th, and there were just so many poignant images that I remember; the smoking ruins, the military vehicles, the impromptu memorials at Union Square, and, especially, the posters of the missing.

For a while, it seemed like it all happened yesterday, but, to me, it's started to seem like a long time ago, since, in many ways, it really was a very different world.

mike_b12

I was not there on 9/11 but I had my trip for Italy and south of France scheduled for october of 2001. I did go and had No problems at all. Some people in Italy even liked George Bush back then, unlike now!